JAKARTA, March 13 (Reuters) - Indonesia's Supreme Court on Monday
doubled to 10 years the punishment for a leader of pro-Jakarta militia
that went on a rampage in the period surrounding East Timor's 1999 freedom
vote.

The verdict was similar to the sentence Eurico Guterres, who is
ethnically East Timorese, was given by a district-level court in November
2002. However, an appellate court had halved that to five years in 2004.

After the appellate court's 2004 decision, the prosecution and Guterres,
who has denied any wrongdoing, appealed to the Supreme Court, which chose
to back the district court's ruling.

"The appellate court's ruling did not match the general feeling of
justice. It was far below the minimum sentencing" for human rights
abuse cases, Supreme Court judge Masyhur Effendi told reporters.

Effendi is a member of the five-judge panel that handled the case
against Guterres, who led the notorious Aitarak militia gang.

Local militia gangs backed by Indonesian army elements were blamed for
much of the carnage before and after East Timor voted in August 1999 to
end 24 years of rule by Jakarta. The United Nations estimates about 1,000
people were killed in the 1999 violence.

The Supreme Court decision means Guterres, currently a politician on
the Indonesian side of Timor island, becomes the only person of the 18 men
indicted by Jakarta prosecutors over the 1999 Timor violence whose legal
proceedings have ended with a conviction from Indonesia's highest judicial
body.

Guterres, himself, has yet to serve any time for the conviction on East
Timor violence. It is unclear whether or when he will start after the
latest ruling but his lawyer said a judicial plea against the decision
would be filed soon.

Under Indonesian laws, a convicted party can challenge a Supreme Court
ruling if the individual can present strong new evidence.

Although some of the 17 other defendants of the 1999 events received
sentences at certain court stages, all were eventually acquitted by the
appellate court or Indonesia's Supreme Court.

All of the 17 were Indonesian security officers or government officials
based in East Timor in 1999.

Their acquittals, which some say were a whitewash of the Indonesian
government's involvement in the atrocities, have drawn fire from the West
and international human rights groups.

East Timor, once a Portuguese colony, became an independent state in
2002.

--- The Australian

E Timor militia chief to be jailed

Sian Powell, Jakarta correspondent

March 14, 2006

THE militia leader who incited his followers to kill East Timorese
independence supporters in 1999 will be the first person punished over the
violence after Indonesia's Supreme Court upheld his conviction for crimes
against humanity yesterday.

In a surprise decision that may indicate a change of thinking at the
highest levels in Indonesia, the court found Eurico Guterres guilty and
increased his sentence to 10 years in jail.

Having been free pending his appeal, Guterres, 34, who led the feared
Aitarak (Thorn) militia, could be jailed within weeks, officials said.

Informed of the decision, Guterres admitted yesterday he was involved
in crushing the independence movement in East Timor. "But I am not
the one who created the situation," he said. "Everyone who was
there, the police, the military, everyone was charged. But in the process
everyone was freed. It only left me."

Guterres and his supporters had been confident the judiciary would
continue its earlier trend of overturning convictions and upholding
acquittals.

Yet a 2500-page UN-sanctioned report on East Timor released earlier
this year, which found the Indonesian invasion responsible for as many as
180,000 East Timorese deaths, has again focused international attention on
Indonesia's lacklustre approach to crimes against humanity in East Timor.

Indonesia and East Timor have also launched a Truth and Friendship
Commission to investigate the atrocities of 1999, but it will have no
power to punish the guilty.

Convicted by the ad hoc East Timor war crimes tribunal that Indonesia
was forced to establish following intense international pressure, Guterres
was first sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2002. On appeal to the High
Court, the sentence was reduced to five years, but the Supreme Court
yesterday re-instated the original sentence.

The native East Timorese has also been indicted for crimes against
humanity by the UN-backed Serious Crimes Unit in East Timor.

As the chief militia leader in East Timor's capital, Dili, in 1999,
Guterres's orders were followed with gusto. Immediately after his vicious
speech at a pro-autonomy rally, he led his gang to attack the house of
pro-independence leader Manuel Carrascalao. Twelve people were killed,
including Carrascalao's 17-year-old son.

At the Supreme Court yesterday, Mansyur Effendi, one of the five judges
on the Guterres case, said he had dissented because he believed the
militia leader should be found innocent.

"In front of the Carrascalao house there were also soldiers and
police," he said. "And there were also people who said
Guterres's speech wasn't as harsh as it has been quoted."

Professor Effendi said the state bore some responsibility, and the
judges should have taken into account the fact that all the others accused
of crimes against humanity in East Timor had been acquitted.

As the chief of one of the most savage militias in East Timor, Guterres
was directly involved in the carnage in the months before and after the
independence ballot.

Lauded as a nationalist hero by some prominent Indonesians, and elected
last month as regional chairman of one Indonesia's larger political
parties, Guterres has in the past said his conviction for war crimes was
"no problem".

More than 1500 East Timorese died in the violence. East Timorese towns
were razed and as many as 250,000 people were forcibly transported to
Indonesia. None of the militia leaders have been punished for the crimes
of 1999.

In 2001, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Indonesia should move
"quickly and decisively against Guterres".

The Supreme Court also upheld the acquittal of General Noer Muis, the
former military chief in East Timor in 1999.